The Ultimate International Adventure Packing List

Get out of your comfort zone with these trips to less-visited parts of the world, from driving down Jordan’s desert highway to tackling high peaks in Mongolia

Paddle from inn to inn, Belize

The island-rich coast of Belize is home to one of the first guided lodge-to-lodge stand-up paddleboarding trips in the world. Guests paddle through the South Water Caye Marine Reserve, exploring mangrove channels and reefs, watching out for stingrays, manatees and pelicans. Evenings are spent at small, family-run inns, where the day ends with snorkelling and watching the sun set from a hammock.
• A seven-day Coral Islands stand-up paddleboarding group trip with Island Expeditions costs from £1,490pp, excluding flights, and runs on selected dates until March. United Airlines flies from Heathrow to Belize City from £430 return

Claim a virgin summit – or two, Mongolia

This trip from Secret Compass offers not only the chance to join a one-off, once in a lifetime expedition, but also the chance to summit two unclimbed 13,000ft peaks, one of which is still unnamed. The group trip, from 5-19 June, takes places in the remote Altai mountains in the Siilkhem national park, near the borders with Russia and China. From climbing exposed ridges to tackling glaciers and pioneering new routes to summits, this is a demanding trip, but will earn the intrepid proper bragging rights.
• The 16-day First Ascents in the Mongolian Altai trip with Secret Compass costs £2,995pp. Flights to Ulaanbatar cost from £475 return with Turkish Airlines

Trans-Siberian Safari, Russia

The Trans-Siberian railway, from Moscow to Vladivostok, celebrates its 100th anniversary this year, and there’s a wide variety of holidays along the classic route. On one group trip with Steppes passengers travel the train route but use other modes of transport (boat, plane, car) to meet locals and see little-visited villages and areas, including Lake Baikal and the Ural mountains. That trip comes at a luxury price but an independent Trans-Sib trip can cost a tenth of that – in second class and booked independently (see The Man in Seat 61 for an excellent guide).
• An independent 10-day return on the Moscow-Beijing route costs from £450. For booking, try Real Russia. Flights to Moscow cost from £64 one way with easyJet from Gatwick and from Vladistock to Heathrow with Aeroflot from £248. An 18-day Trans-Siberian Safari with Steppes Travel in June costs £4,765, including both flights to Moscow and back from Vladivostok.